My Biggest Disappointment

Seems like an insignificant word to use, but no one talks about how unbelievably disappointing it is to lose a loved one.

I mean, if you google “disappointing,” it says, “failing to fulfill someone’s hopes or expectations”

My Dad was my person. He made me feel safe and seen in the world. Always. No matter what. I always knew when I came to him with anything, I would receive love and acceptance. Even when I couldn’t give it to myself.

He had been through the gamut of serious illnesses (cancer twice) and accidents (like, with construction backhoe hitting his head … and he didn’t have a hard hat on), an open heart surgery to replace a valve, and he always came out of everything unscathed. Just typing this out, for the first time, I’m realizing how incredibly grateful we were to even have him until he was 62.

With all that he went through, it’s fair to say, at the time, in my mind, he most certainly would live to be an old man. Not only that, I decided even, (poor guy), that he would likely outlive me. Selfishly, I was totally fine with that.

He’s been gone now for almost 10 years and the disappointment grows with every passing year.

I have so many questions about business and life and marriage.

I try not to think about it, but, he didn’t get to see me happy. I’m married to a great guy now who he never met and will never get to meet.

Every cool and funny thing my kids have done over the years. Maya graduated high school and college and is now a teacher… and she lives in Arizona and loves it. He would have loved Arizona.

Marley Belle graduated high school last year and is living and going to school in NYC. I can hear him now saying, of course she is! Marley has always been our fashionista.

Little Willow, the quiet shy little person, is the social butterfly of the neighborhood. She loves music and art and is traveling to visit Marina and live with her in Spain this summer.

My God, the grandchildren that have been born since he has been gone. That’s the hardest part. They will never know him. The unfairness of that could destroy my heart if it let it. Not just the unfairness for the kids, it’s more the unfairness I feel for my two younger sisters.

I have been pushing the disappointment away for the past 10 years and I’m understanding now that it’s always been there, waiting for me to feel it.